Thank you for the happy birthday however...

Thank you for the birthday greeting in my mail box.

However.

For the last 3 years I have submitted the same childrens site (reddeerforum) many, many times with no smaller than a 3 month gap.

Even when I asked what happened to it, I was told to re submit, which i did.

I totally understand the issues you are having re servers (I run one) but I have submitted the same free to use literacy book awareness site loads of times Im a little bemused. I have heard nothing. Nada. Zilch. Except 'happy birthday' today.

I last posted on the forums last year, and carried on submitting till december 05, when I gave up.

You were never told to suggest a site many times.
When you asked what had happened you could not tell us where you suggested the site. You were than told to suggest it once more and after a month to come back. In the mean time we discontinued to answer status requests.

Stop suggesting the same site over and over again. The best thing that can happen if you continue to suggest the site is that you are enlarging the time before it will be reviewed.

BTW you will hear nothing from DMOZ about your site. Not when it is reviewed, not when it is listed (but there are many ways to find out yourself if it is listed) and not when it is rejected (by reading teh DMOZ guidelines you can already know if there is a reason for us to reject it).
If there is no reason for us to reject it and it is not listed you can be sure it still waiting review. Because of the way DMOZ is working we can not predict when a review will be done, could be next week (altleast it could be if our server is available), next month, next year or even longer. We just don't know.

the last time i did submit it (remembering I had NO email saying 'thanks for the submission) was 1 month AFTER my query last time.

I have not submitted since then, the site has been recognised by the Education Otherwise group WITHOUT Dmoz.

I find your answer rather useless and totally unhelpful. Red Deer Forum STILL does not appear on DMOZ after 3 years, and I was VERY careful at EVERY site configuration that it fuflilled EVERY Dmoz specification for that category.

Yes every site configuration. The site has had a few issues where the database was offline. The site currently resides as is because of a memory blow out on the current server, actually scrambling the forum code, fortunatelyt the database was safe and was able to resurect with the minimal of fuss.

Did I REALLY expect to hear anything? from all the posts, probably no. But I DO have a way of getting feedback and no hits have been obtained by DMOZ. I do no DMOZ editors have looked at the site 2 YEARS AGO thanks to awstat records.

Red deer forum is checked for on DMOZ by all the members every week, and they still cannot find it. So even if you hadnt emailed to say 'congrats your in' I would have KNOWN anyway.

The last submission was in 2005, that was last year.

To be honest, Red Deer Forum was submitted back in 2001 when it was a MSN group by the then owner. So can you explain a difference of over 5 years? For an educational free to use site?

The site has been google spidered 8 times a day since 2003 yet DMOZ cant be bothered it seems.

sarahj said:

I find your answer rather useless and totally unhelpful.

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I am sorry to hear that. I only tried to explain how DMOZ works and what you can expect from it. I understand that this was not the answer you were hoping for. But we just can't tell you anything we ourself don't know.

There is only one reason why a site is not yet reviewed: noone (editor or no-editor) was interested enough to review it.
This might be because the category subject was of no interest to them. Or because there are many 1000th sites waiting in that category and they are just processing them a few each day. Or maybe it is a category swamped with spam and we didn't notice your site amongst all that spam. I realy don't know. I don't know which category I will be working on tomorrow and I certainly don't know what my fellow editors will be doing.

However, even you admit, 3 or 5 years (either) is excessive amount of time to be waiting and waiting and waiting and checking, checking, checking.

How the heck am I supposed to recommend DMOZ to the 100 or so people who ask me if DMOZ take such an excessive amount of time?

In the category RDF is in sites have been known to die within 2 years. Infact the average lifespan of a site is usually 6 - 24 months, so are you hoping that people just die off before you all 'get round to it'???

I myself am a volunteer. Not to DMOZ, although I did consider it. I actually run my local freecycle list. Even when I was lone moderator with 1000 members, no message waited longer than 4 days to be vetted. And that was with a 20 message a day work load to vet/reject/amend

I am sorry you have problems, but we all do, and at the end of the day it doesnt seem to be that DMOZ has looked at its inadequecies to see if there is anyway to improve the situation. Maybe right now is the time, while the server is off line.

PS it was my understanding from when I looked into helping at DMOZ that you applied for a specific category to moderate. However from your response this seems to not be the case. I suggest you ammend all pages and links to say that, or you are feeding misleading information that can actually cause you problems. If a moderator has signed up for a specific 'category' then that is their contracted voluntary obligation if accepted. Not to rotate round other categories.

I remember now, a loooong time a go I did put in a offer to moderate, but I think now I dont want to! No one could even be bothered to even email me back then either!!!!

it doesnt seem to be that DMOZ has looked at its inadequecies to see if there is anyway to improve the situation

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I can assure you we have. But we are not here as a listing service for webmasters. We are here to build a useful directory. Yes it would be good to be able to add more good sites more quickly, but we're thinking in terms of users loosing out rather than wemasters waiting. Short of finding a magical new supply of good editors, or somehow convincing people to follow the site suggestion guidelines (no multiple submissions, not submitting unlistable sites, using appropraite titles and descriptions) I'm not sure what we could do... Any thoughts?

it was my understanding from when I looked into helping at DMOZ that you applied for a specific category to moderate.

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That's more or less correct, though it's less 'moderate' and more 'have permissions to edit in'. No editor has sole rights over any category, and other editors with the appropriate permissions are free to edit in the same places if they wish. Once an editor has learned the ropes in a small / simple category, they are able to apply for permissions in other (usually larger / more complex) categories.

If a moderator has signed up for a specific 'category' then that is their contracted voluntary obligation if accepted.

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I can see where you're coming from with the "contracted voluntary obligation" bit, but it's really not appropriate for the ODP. You see, there are many more categories than editors, and an editor being listed in a category no way prevents another editor editing there too. Hence we're grateful even for the editors who just do the minium of 1 edit every four months. They add value (albeit only a small amount) to the directory, without 'getting in the way' or 'taking up space' so to speak.

No one could even be bothered to even email me back then either!!!!

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Every applicant gets an email when their application has been reviewed. If an application isn't approved, the email includes reasons for rejecting it and tips for improving future applications. If you didn't receive that email, it may have got caught in a spam filter. (Also, the first thing that happens after you apply is that you get an email which you must reply to to confirm your email address -- if you didn't receive and reply to that, your application wouldn't have reached the reviewers.)

Good morning, sarahj, and a personal Happy Birthday from myself, .

One reason you may have seen an ODP editor visit your site, but not review it, is that many times an editor is just going through various categories looking for duplicate submissions and deleting all but one copy, deleting any spam they find, or just checking sites to make sure they are in the right category.

If they are not, the editor will move the site to the correct category, for consideration by the editor in that area. Please remember that no site has a right to be listed, and there is no guarantee that it will be listed.

I, totally sympathize with your frustration over such a long wait, and I agree with you, 3 to 5 years is ridiculous, but, there may be only one editor over in that area, editing many, many categories, with 5,000+ site suggestions, or there may be no editor at all, other than editors who pass by occassionally.

To give you an inside look at what an editor really does, please read this:
http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=227402#post227402

It is my own personal opinion and experience as an editor, but maybe it will help you undertand a little better.

sarahj said:

However, even you admit, 3 or 5 years (either) is excessive amount of time to be waiting and waiting and waiting and checking, checking, checking.

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From your perspective as a webmaster it is. But from our perspective it isn't. Ofcourse we would like to be able to process all suggestions within a specific timeframe. But we know it isn't possible. And for the way DMOZ is working, which is a good way in our opinion, it isn't necessary.

sarahj said:

In the category RDF is in sites have been known to die within 2 years. Infact the average lifespan of a site is usually 6 - 24 months, so are you hoping that people just die off before you all 'get round to it'???

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Just speaking for myself. I see no reason to list a site that only has a lifespan of a few months / years. We are looking for longterm usefull information.

Thank you for the birthday greeting in my mail box.

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The birthday greeting is automatically generated by the forum software.

In the category RDF is in sites have been known to die within 2 years. Infact the average lifespan of a site is usually 6 - 24 months, so are you hoping that people just die off before you all 'get round to it'???

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In my opinion, we're probably not missing much if we haven't reviewed a site that only has a lifespan of a few months (current event sites like, say, the various tsunami sites from a few years ago notwithstanding).

I myself am a volunteer. Not to DMOZ, although I did consider it. I actually run my local freecycle list. Even when I was lone moderator with 1000 members, no message waited longer than 4 days to be vetted. And that was with a 20 message a day work load to vet/reject/amend

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20 messages a day is really not that many, and moderating a forum is not at all like editing at the ODP.

nea said:

Every applicant gets an email when their application has been reviewed. If an application isn't approved, the email includes reasons for rejecting it and tips for improving future applications. If you didn't receive that email, it may have got caught in a spam filter. (Also, the first thing that happens after you apply is that you get an email which you must reply to to confirm your email address -- if you didn't receive and reply to that, your application wouldn't have reached the reviewers.)

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Actually I regularly checked for spam. The email address I used is on my own server, and set specifically to send spam to a set folder checked at the root directory MANUALLY for errors. I do this as often as twice a week and remove all errant emails and adjust the spam filter to any emails that happened to get accidentally put in there.

When I first submited this site I didnt own it. I was a member, I hosted it, but I didnt own it. I 'inherited it' later after the owner decided it was too much work. Seemed like too good a site to dissappear, so now I own it. When I first submitted it it wasnt even hosted by me either! I submitted my own personal webspace at the same time. So from a simple member of the public, 3 years is far TOO long. For a webmaster, its an eternaty in which time sites can be hacked, smashed, revoked, run down, abandoned, abused (do I need to carry on?)

Oh and for the record, the 20 posts a day was just FREECYCLE. I also recieve up to 100 email a day on server and technical queries, website quotes, installation and design quotes as well as coordinate Red Deer Forum, a single parents website AND set up another server, sell ebooks and write them too. I also install, design and assist people in setting up websites. I also give free advice on quite a few forums (for free) on web design and webhosts. Granted, I tend to end up hosting 60% who ask me questions, but I still manage to get work for a few other webhosts. DMOZ *was* on my recommendation lists, but as the average life of a 'hobby site' is low, seems pointless to bother doing so.

I have 3 children and am a lone parent, and care for my disabled mother part time. My children do Karate, Scouts, Dance and football. My son has to be home tutored 3 times a week in addition to school as he has a IQ of 142. I am dairy allergic and my daughter has sever allergies to artificial sweetners. Everything in my house has to be cooked from scratch, including bread. Im a fully trained programmer, server tech and electrician (um dont ask how I got that one!)

Is your life as busy as mine? yet you cant keep organised? maybe you need my ebook Time on a budget, its available at a website called budgetmeals. (which I dont own, I simply write ebooks with the lady who does)

I suggest you take your pompus attitude to me and try it on yourself, see how you like it. And if you wouldnt like to be talked to like that, DONT TALK TO OTHERS LIKE IT.

Oh and please use manners. My 5 year old can say 'please', 'thankyou' and 'excuse me'. So far I havent seen any manners in any of your responses. bad manners breeds resentment and creates anger.

So, how many more excuses and moans and winges are you going to sling at me? How many 'we cant' attitude statements are you now going to bring?

Im waiting.

Oh and scare tactics dont work.... afraid Ive confronted people a lot more powerful and scary than you guys.

Seeing no serious questions, and no relevant information, in the latest post, I deduce the thread has run its course.

Oh and for the record, the 20 posts a day was just FREECYCLE.

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The reason I referred to it was that you wrote it as if the fact that you could process 20 posts per day at Freecycle was a sign that editors should be able to review sites more quickly.

Is your life as busy as mine? yet you cant keep organised?

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It's great that you are able to keep everything on the go but please don't make the mistake of thinking that your life is unique in that respect. Most ODP editors are juggling lives that are as busy as yours (some more so) while trying to fit in a little time to edit as well.

I suggest you take your pompus attitude to me and try it on yourself, see how you like it. And if you wouldnt like to be talked to like that, DONT TALK TO OTHERS LIKE IT.

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I see no one in this thread being pompous. Perhaps you're reading things into what has been posted that isn't actually there.

Oh and please use manners. My 5 year old can say 'please', 'thankyou' and 'excuse me'. So far I havent seen any manners in any of your responses. bad manners breeds resentment and creates anger.

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You might like to reread your posts as well. Other than your initial "thank you" for the birthday greeting, I see nary a please or an excuse me anywhere.

Oh and scare tactics dont work.... afraid Ive confronted people a lot more powerful and scary than you guys.

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You really have been misreading this entire thread. No one has tried to scare you. All we've done is try to lay out the facts to you. If you're not open to those facts, there's not a whole lot we can do about that.